This invention is a new and distinct cultivar of sweet cherry `Royalton`, which we discovered in a test planting belonging to the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, Cornell University, Geneva, Ontario County, N.Y. This discovery is a product of a cherry breeding research program of the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station ("Station").
In 1968 open-pollinated seed from unknown male parent source was gathered from a NY1725 cherry tree growing on `Station` property. This seed was given cold treatment to satisfy its stratification requirement along with other seeds derived from our research. It was planted in Research Field Number D-1 Row-19, Tree-161 on Station grounds. When the tree resulting from this seed bore fruit in 1975 we selected it because it had unique fruit. It was designated NY11390 and grafted in 1976 utilizing two different grafting techniques, topworking and nursery T-budding. One top-worked, grafted tree was constructed by grafting onto NY5389 which become the interstem. This tree was located in the Station research field designated as Lucey in Row 6, Tree 16 (abbreviated as LR6T16). Three grafted trees resulted from "T" budding onto "Mahaleb " rootstocks in the nursery. These were harvested in 1980 and stored in Station tree storage facilities until the spring of 1981 when they were planted in a Station research location designated as Crittenden Number 30, Row 7, Trees 25, 26, and 27 (abbreviated as C30R7T25, T26 and T27). The trees located at LR6T16 and C30R7T25 and T26 subsequently fruited and had research observations taken about their performance on a regular, annual basis, and were identical to one another in all horticultural respects that were noted by the various technicians and faculty scientists who took observations on them. The tree located at C30R7T27 died without providing any important evaluation records. C30R7T25 is still alive and in a sufficiently good state of health to afford useful performance evaluation records. Further trees were propagated by Station technicians in 1984 using plant parts taken from the NY 11390 trees located in LR6T16. These trees were planted in the spring of 1986 in a Station research field designated Lucey Number 50, Row 4, Trees 1 through 7. Other `Royalton` trees from our nursery propagation were distributed during the 1980s to private orchardist-cooperators for the purpose of testing using a restricted distribution test agreement. Trees of NY11390, including a few hundred trees asexually propagated by grafting, in evaluations prior to filing of the patent application herein were consistantly found to be true-to-type and stable in their horticultural traits. Since the patent application was submitted in 1991, vegetative buds of `Royalton` have been provided to commercial fruit tree nurseries, and a breeder-inventor herein has seen commercial orchards of `Royalton` and has seen no change in traits from those that were noted in evaluations prior to the patent application being submitted.